Death on the Line: A Northern Irish Noir Thriller (Wilson Book 7)

by Derek Fee

  ‘Have it your way.’ There was a sharpness to Gibson’s voice. ‘I’m interviewing the Kielty family at eleven o’clock at their farm. I’ve e-mailed you a map. I assume you’ll be there.’

  ‘See you at eleven.’ The line went dead. Not exactly the start of a beautiful relationship, Wilson thought, but then again he wouldn’t be too happy if he were in Gibson’s shoes. He would have to proceed carefully if he were to avoid a pissing contest. It would have to be a softly-softly approach; not something Wilson was renowned for. But the object of the exercise was to find the bastard who had killed an old farmer and almost killed his friend. His computer signalled a new e-mail arriving. Gibson had sent him a Google map with a red pin indicating the Kielty farmhouse. It looked like it was in the middle of nowhere. He was going to have some fun finding it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Wilson turned off the B35 onto the narrow rural lane that he hoped led to the Kielty farmhouse. He stopped on the corner and surveyed the road ahead. It was a sea of mud and wheel tracks, with a thin strip of grass in the centre. The overnight rain had left puddles in what looked like potholes. This trip was not going to be kind to his Saab. He pushed ahead, hoping that he was on the right road. The track continued for several miles between open fields with occasional steel gates the only feature of note. He was relieved when he saw a large galvanised structure ahead in the distance. As he got closer, he saw that the structure was a barn and that it opened onto a farmyard where a police car was parked side by side with a tractor and a compact Ford in front of a single-storey house. He pulled up beside the other cars and, not for the first time in this part of the country, lamented the fact that he didn’t have a pair of gumboots in the car. He cut the engine and opened the car door. He glanced at his black leather shoes, the Saab wasn’t the only thing he owned that was going to take a beating. He walked across the muddy farmyard towards the door in the centre of the farmhouse. The building looked like it was at least a hundred years old. It was of a design that could be found anywhere in rural Ireland. There were two small windows on either side of the door and the rendering on the front of the building had been recently painted white. He rapped on the door. A minute later it was opened by a man whose bulk filled the space of the doorway.

  Wilson had already removed his warrant card and now showed it to the man who had opened the door. ‘Detective Superintendent Wilson,’ he said.

  The man moved aside from the door to permit Wilson to enter and at the same time extended his hand. ‘Trevor Kielty.’

  Wilson shook his hand. ‘I’m sorry for your trouble.’ He entered the main room of the house and had to adjust his eyes to the low level of light. There were three people in the large combined living room, kitchen and dining area. The poor in rural Ireland were into open-plan living long before it became popular. He nodded at Gibson, who was sitting at a table located to the right of the door. To the left was a large inglenook fireplace at which a sixty-something-year-old woman was sitting. Across from her was a man in clerical dress.

  Gibson immediately stood up and approached Wilson. He made the introductions. ‘This is Mrs Kielty and her parson, the Reverend Hunter. Trevor is Mr and Mrs Kielty’s son. This is Detective Superintendent Ian Wilson.’

  Wilson walked to Mrs Kielty and offered her his hand. ‘I’m sorry for your trouble.’

  Mrs Kielty took his hand. ‘Thank you, Superintendent.’ Wilson looked down at her. She was a typical farmer’s wife. The hand that held his was large and calloused. Standing she would be tall for a woman and she had a lived-in face. She would probably never have been called handsome. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. ‘Tom would be pleased that they sent a senior officer to investigate his death.’

  As soon as she let his hand go, Wilson turned to the parson and shook hands. Hunter’s hand felt like a wet fish in Wilson’s grip. As the handshake ended, Wilson had the inclination to wipe his hand on his trouser leg.

  ‘You’ve come all the way from Belfast,’ Hunter said. ‘I thought Armagh was responsible for this area.’

  Wilson stared at the parson. His face was thin with his cheeks and nose stood out. His forehead was high almost to the crown of his head and his hair was combed back. The dark garb accentuated the paleness of his narrow face. His body was slight and his clothes hung on his frame. Wilson had the impression that at some point Hunter had carried more weight.

  Wilson glanced at Gibson. He wondered what was being discussed before his arrival. ‘The other individual shot was the crime reporter for the Belfast Chronicle. Our superiors in Castlereagh thought it appropriate that the two regions cooperate on this one. We both want to put the person who shot Mr Kielty and Jock McDevitt where he belongs, behind bars. Detective Sergeant Gibson is the senior investigating officer. My input will be purely consultative.’

  ‘Please, Superintendent, take a seat,’ Mrs Kielty said. ‘Can I get you some tea?’

  ‘No thanks, I had some before I left Belfast.’ Wilson sat in a chair close to the door, which gave him a view of all the people in the room.

  Gibson retook his place at the table with a self-satisfied smile on his face. There was a brief period of silence. Wilson had already established the rules of responsibility for the investigation and he waited for Gibson to take the lead.

  ‘We’re wondering what Mr Kielty was doing in the field last night,’ Gibson said finally. He addressed the question to Mrs Kielty.

  Wilson was watching the Kieltys and Hunter, he was certain that he saw a look pass between them.

  ‘The man has been demented lately,’ Trevor Kielty said. ‘Wandering all over the country at night, talking all kinds of shite.’

  Wilson saw Hunter suppress a smile. Mrs Kielty looked into the fire and ignored her son.

  ‘Tom’s been having some mental issues,’ the parson interjected. ‘He’s been diagnosed with a touch of early dementia. He doesn’t sleep well and he finds himself places and doesn’t know why he’s there or how he got there.’

  Wilson didn’t know exactly why, but he had taken an instant dislike to the parson.

  ‘Aye,’ Mrs Kielty continued to stare into the fire. ‘The poor man wasn’t himself lately. Trevor’s been handling the farm work.’ The son crossed the room and stood beside his mother, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘He hasn’t said anything lately about criminal activity in the area?’ Gibson asked.

  Trevor smiled. ‘Dad saw criminal activity everywhere, neighbours were encroaching on his land, Travellers were rustling his cattle. The only time he wasn’t complaining about something was when he was asleep.’

  ‘What about lately?’ Gibson asked. ‘Was there anything in particular bothering him lately?’

  Trevor dropped his head. ‘I’d given up listening to him. He might have said something, but it went in one ear and out the other.’

  ‘What about you Mrs Kielty?’ Wilson asked.

  She looked up and directly into Wilson’s eyes. ‘Tom might have been a bit scattered lately, but he was mostly as sharp as a pin. He said there was something strange going on in the parish. He was going to investigate further. But he didn’t want to go to the police until he was sure. I thought it was all in his head.’ She started to cry quietly. ‘When will they give him back to me? We have a wake to organise.’ She directed the question to Wilson, who was staring at Hunter, who in turn didn’t look pleased.

  ‘Because it was a sudden death there’ll have to be a post-mortem,’ Wilson said. ‘As soon as the pathologist is finished, they should be ready to release the body. Of course, there’ll be a coroner’s inquest. But that’s way down the road. We’ll do everything to ensure that your needs are recognised and accommodated. In the meantime, someone will have to identify the body. DS Gibson will organise that with you.’

  Trevor stepped away from his mother. ‘I’ll do that.’

  Wilson stood up. He had marked the Kielty mother and son as good honest-to-God Ulster folk. He wouldn’t be prepared to say the same about R
everend Hunter. ‘I think DS Gibson and myself have taken up enough of your time.’ He looked across the room and saw Gibson rise reluctantly. ‘We may need to speak with you later and, depending on the direction of the investigation, we may need to take a statement.’ He noticed a look pass between Trevor and Hunter. ‘It’s purely a procedural matter.’

  Gibson took Mrs Kielty’s hand. ‘Thanks for your time and I’m sorry for your loss.’ He followed Wilson out the door.

  Wilson walked with Gibson to the police car. ‘Was Hunter in the house when you arrived?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘Yes.’ There was a quizzical look on Gibson’s face. ‘Why?’

  Wilson didn’t answer directly. ‘Did you buy the story about Tom Kielty being scatty?’

  ‘Yes, why else would he be out in the middle of the night?’

  ‘That’s what we need to find out.’ Wilson moved towards his car. ‘Maybe you should check with Kielty’s doctor about the dementia story.’ Wilson unlocked the car and glanced back at the house. Trevor Kielty and the Reverend Hunter were at the window, watching them closely.

  Wilson started back down the narrow lane. He was certain that he had been lied to, and that Hunter was at the centre of the lie, but he had no idea why. What reason could he have for ensuring that Tom Kielty was seen as a crazy? And if Kielty was so crazy, why had someone bothered to murder him? Kielty was killed because he discovered something that should have remained hidden. Only one person could be depended on to supply the answer to the questions that were running through his mind. And that person was lying in the ICU of Craigavon Community Hospital. He looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was just past one o’clock in the afternoon. He had five hours to kill before he could call the hospital for an update.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Wilson made his way back down the lane and turned left onto the B35, intending to head straight back to Belfast. He decided at the last minute to pull into a wooded area that would give him a view of the end of the lane. He cut the engine and waited. Ten minutes later the Ford exited from the lane, closely followed by Gibson’s police car. The Ford turned in the direction of Aughnacloy while the police car went in the opposite direction. Gibson had been ready to leave when Wilson departed. Why had he stayed behind? And how did the parson manage to leave before him? Just two new questions to add to those already running around inside his head. He started the car and turned in the direction of Belfast. He didn’t much like his role as a consultant and he had a feeling that Gibson wasn’t going to be the most cooperative colleague. This was a rural area and country people tend to be secretive and cling together. Although he had no direct evidence to prove it, the seed had been sown in his mind that Gibson could possibly be involved in the conspiracy of lies that he had witnessed at the farmhouse. That meant that significant facts might be kept from him. He made a mental note to find out the name of Kielty’s doctor. If the answer came back from Gibson that the doctor had confirmed the diagnosis of early dementia, he wanted to be able to check it out for himself.

  Wilson continued to mull over the events of the morning on the trip back to Belfast. Tom Kielty had discovered something big enough for Jock McDevitt to travel from Belfast. That something was the motive for the murder and the attempted murder. Find the motive and you have the culprit in your sights. Mother and son Kielty might know what that motive was, but they were not sharing that information. The son was totally on message, but maybe Mrs Kielty had not been so well briefed. In most of the investigations Wilson had undertaken the culprit appeared first and he was obliged to find the motive afterwards. His thoughts strayed to Sammy Rice. He already knew the culprits. Richie Simpson had fired the fatal shot. Davie Best and Ray Wright had disposed of the body. The part that he didn’t quite fathom was the role of Jackie Carlisle. Simpson had been paid five thousand pounds by Carlisle to arrange Sammy’s demise. That was a bit of a mystery. Why had Carlisle wanted Sammy dead? He had a list of culprits as long as his arm, but he had no motive for the murder. What was the connection between Carlisle and Sammy? How had that connection gone sour? Carlisle had died from an apparent self-administered overdose of morphine almost simultaneously with Sammy’s disappearance. That was one hell of a coincidence. Carlisle’s death eliminated both him and the motive for ordering Sammy’s murder. Simpson was in it for the money; Wright and Best because their boss saw an opportunity to get rid of a business rival. As he neared Belfast he developed a new line of enquiry into Carlisle’s death. He had more or less forgotten the notebook that he’d left with Professor Gowan. He hadn’t heard back from the academic and he’d supposed that no progress had been made on cracking the code. He made a second mental note, this time to check back with Gowan.

  An hour later, Wilson was sitting at a table in the station cafeteria in the company of Rory Browne and Peter Davidson. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast so he was glad to get a tuna sandwich and a cup of tea. During the late lunch he had expounded on his reflections on the Rice investigation.

  ‘Jackie Carlisle,’ Davidson said, more or less to himself

  Browne, who had been listening carefully to his boss, was aware that the investigation he was nominally heading was rapidly running out of steam. The CCTV had proved to be a dead end and their attempts to track the progress of the car from East Belfast to its final destination had foundered when they had run out of traffic cameras. The last sighting of the car, which they believed held the body of Sammy Rice, was at Whiteabbey on the A2 heading in the direction of Carrickfergus. Browne didn’t want to be associated with a failure on his first investigation and he was ready to grasp any straw with both hands. He’d heard of Jackie Carlisle. Who in the province hadn’t? But he couldn’t get his head around Wilson’s theory that somehow a politician like Carlisle was ordering hits on major criminals. Maybe there was a ‘Star Chamber’ operating in the province. ‘What do you have in mind, Boss?’

  ‘Carlisle’s death was a bit too opportune. It was passed off a bit too quickly by the coroner.’ And by the PSNI, he thought but didn’t add. He had been remiss and he didn’t like to admit it, even to himself.

  ‘He was dying, Boss,’ Davidson said. ‘And apparently in considerable pain. There are plenty of people out there who would take the same option if it was available to them.’

  ‘So, we’re going to look into his death?’ Browne asked.

  Wilson pushed the detritus of his lunch out of his way. ‘That’s the gist of it.’

  ‘Jesus, Boss,’ Davidson said. ‘That’s a dangerous manoeuvre. Do you think that Castlereagh will be onside?’

  Wilson was sure that Castlereagh would definitely not be onside. In fact, some people in Castlereagh would head straight for the toilet if they heard he was going to investigate the death of one of Ulster’s premier politicians. Particularly since the coroner had already signed off on that death. ‘For the moment we’re going to keep this line of enquiry to ourselves. That means we have to proceed with extreme care.’ He looked at Browne. ‘I don’t want you going rogue on this one, Rory. You’re going to have to be delicate.’

  ‘How do we begin, Boss?’ Davidson asked.

  ‘Where did he get the morphine?’ Wilson said. ‘It didn’t just materialise. He had to procure it somewhere. We need to know where it came from. That would be my starting point.’

  Browne had removed his notebook from his pocket and was making notes. ‘That means we have to interview the widow.’

  Wilson pushed back his chair and stood. ‘Like I said, Rory, be delicate.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  He had never experienced the clock moving so slowly. People who want to live long lives sometimes prefer to perform boring tasks because it seems to prolong time. In Wilson’s case, every administrative task was boring, but the slowness of the clock that afternoon had more to do with the anxiety he was feeling about McDevitt’s condition. He was caught by the old dilemma. He wanted desperately to know what McDevitt’s condition was, but he didn’t want to know that his friend was about to
die. So, the hands of his watch crawled towards six o’clock while he ploughed his way through budgets, comments on colleagues’ latest brainwaves for solving crimes and reams of reports. He cracked at five minutes to six and phoned Craigavon Community Hospital and asked to be put through to the Intensive Care Unit. The nurse taking the call was reluctant to give him information even after he identified himself as a PSNI detective superintendent. He was passed to a doctor who was more amenable. Gibson had already called from Armagh. Wilson explained that he was consulting on the case.

  Jock McDevitt was poorly and still critical, but his vital signs were good and as long as he continued in this fashion the prognosis was positive. Of course, there was no certainty that he wouldn’t take a turn for the worse, but it was ‘so far so good’. Wilson asked when he might be able to visit the patient and was told that it was far too early to say. The message was to call back tomorrow for an update on Jock’s condition. When he put down the phone, two emotions washed over him. The first was relief that Jock was alive, but the second was anxiety that at any moment the positive direction of his condition might reverse and tomorrow’s call might not end so well. He was trying to decide whether he should continue to make inroads into his administrative work or to call it a day when his phone rang. He picked it up.

  ‘I just got off the line with a colleague in Craigavon,’ Stephanie Reid’s voice came over the phone. ‘He’s going to be OK.’

  He smiled. Hearing her voice always made him happy. He was beginning to warm to their relationship, which she always insisted was only sexual. Although their sex life was still active, they were drawing a lot of enjoyment from simply being together. Several nights lately they had simply held each other in bed without having sex.

  ‘They told me that there was still a chance his condition could worsen,’ he said.